As the debate over the Stormont budget rages on, and the threat of a return to direct rule looms closer, what is the future for anti austerity politics under the current system in Northern Ireland?
This week saw yet another apparent U turn from Sinn Fein on the Stormont budget. Having agreed in principle to a deal at the end of 2014, the now infamous Stormont House Agreement, the party then decided they would not support a budget on these terms as it did not guarantee current levels of welfare provision indefinitely. However, speaking at a meeting of his party's Ard Chomhairle at the weekend the Deputy First Minister said that,
'in the context of the present situation in relation to the Budget Bill that we will be giving conditional support to this Budget Bill today.'
So Sinn Fein don't agree with the budget, but they'll support it, and then apparently renegotiate it at some later stage? It seems that the party's PR game has gotten quite muddled now that the thing that they present as their primary success - Stormont - looks to be under threat due to its consistent malfunctioning. The simple fact is that the Assembly has not successfully governed or significantly improved the North since its inception, and its weaknesses are becoming increasingly apparent as being 'better than the bad old days' is no longer seen as good enough.
The Sinn Fein/DUP modus operandi of making a big show of the debate between themselves in the knowledge that they won't affect each other at the ballot box, while cooperating up on the hill in their carve up of budgets, protection of party interests and expenses gravy train has been a direct result of the mandatory coalition system. Flip flopping over welfare reform is simply a reflection of Sinn Fein's need to keep the Assembly gravy train on the tracks, while not being seen to openly cooperate with the Tories or DUP.
With the unionist benches and Alliance all openly accepting of welfare reform and the austerity line; and the SDLP continuing their tactic of saying nothing radical or interesting on the big issues in the hope that they don't become any less relevant than they already are, it seems that collapsing Stormont and opening the North up to the pain of direct Tory rule might be the best case scenario. The political play acting on the hill which the current system provides won't offer solutions, and a rethink is clearly necessary if genuine opposition to austerity can exist the way it does in Scotland.
